Nov 27 2009 5:52 pm, Niall Doherty
It’s January: …and the world of music magazine publishing is still reeling from the fact that The Fly had an artificial-but-JESUS-THAT’S-REALISTIC turd on the cover of the December/January edition. There are other goings on in the world in 2003 than a fake shit though: like SARS, basking in the glory of being the world’s hot-new-pandemic, and thousands taking to London’s streets to partake in a totally successful march against the war in Iraq. I was knackered at the end of that march, too. There’s more pol’it’ick’al outrage come the summer, too, when the body of scientist David Kelly is discovered on Harrowdown Hill, Oxford after his name is leaked in conjunction with the WMD scandal, kickstarting a new wave of political voices in the world of music as embittered peace cries come from Thom Yorke, who will go on to write a song called ‘Harrowdown Hill’, Damon Albarn and American country music trio Dixie Chicks, whose protestations against the Iraq invasion are met with the rage of middle America’s mass thickos. Burgeoning rock behemoths Muse, meanwhile, might just be about to take the intergalactic leap to arenadom, but Matt Bellamy is increasingly start to resemble David Icke with his wide-eyed, speed-talked conspiracy theories. It’s fair to say 2003 is rather overshadowed by all this war business – mainly because NOTHING ELSE OF NOTE ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Except for Bee Gee Maurice Gibb dying. And Arsenal beating Southampton in the FA Cup Final. See?
HI! Bands who formed in 2003: Arcade Fire, Babyshambles, The Boxer Rebellion, Brakes, CSS, The Dead 60s, Glasvegas, Hard-Fi, The Hoosiers, Juliette & The Licks, One Night Only, Noisettes,
BYE! Bands who split in 2003: Mansun, Pantera, Rollins Band, Suede, Stone Temple Pilots, Zwan and – holy Christ, I can’t believe I’ve dug all this up again, it tore me up at the time – THE LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY. May you rest in piece, you coma-voiced dulloids.
Album Of The Year: A close run thing between the art-rock judder of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ debut ‘Fever To Tell’ and hello-arena! stratospherics of Muse’s ‘Absolution’.
The Fly Clanger Of The Year: Electric Six were on the cover. I wrote the feature. Way to start your career.
The Fly covers: We follow up the fake poo on the cover at the end of 2002 with more stinky shit goodness: our first cover of the year is a diarrhoeic double-whammy of Hell Is For Heroes and The Bandits. But these things have to be put in context, and to understand why they’re on the cover you have to realise that, back in 2003, they were, umm, both shit. Oh right, ok, let’s move on. Next up in March were a pre-The Dead Weather, pre-Kate Moss Kills and they were so cryogenically cool that they got the whole cover to themselves. The coverline is stellar too – it says… “THE KILLS”. And that’s it. Matter-of-fact, to-the-point, I’m-a-simpleton. Album Of The Month? Buffseeds of course, you dick! Talking of dicks, who are these Scandinavian turnips making a leap for joy on the cover of our April issue? YUP, IT’S JUNIOR SENIOR, who were in the Top Five when the issue came out at the start of the month and back in Vordingborg on the dole in time for the start of May. Probably. Enough of this bitchiness, though, for the next month sees the arrival of a new addition to The Fly’s editorial team: ME. And look at sweet little naïve me doing my first cover feature, not aware that I’ll never be able to bring it up without ridicule because it’s with novelty-rock jokers ELECTRIC SIX. Yikey nikey. The next month sees Oirish West Coast obsessives The Ch’Rills on the cover - they have their arms crossed and don’t look too happy about it. Mmm. The Coral meanwhile look absolutely fucking thrilled to be on the July cover, though, yeah, over the fucking moon, doing cartwheels’n’all. They don’t look like we’ve just handed them a terminal illness at all. Not at all. And the photo is definitely not out of focus. NOPE. In August, a Guy Garvey slightly slimmer and every inch as charming as the one who featured on our Nov/Dec 2008 cover is staring out from the August issue as Elbow follow-up their feted debut with mixed results follow-up ‘Cast Of Thousands’. The Electric Soft Parade, one of whom is “wearing” a pencil moustache and not even in jest are on the cover of our September issue. They follow the 2003 running theme by not looking the slightest bit bothered about it. Now, there’s been a few DID WE DO THAT? DID WE? moments as I’ve flicked through these back issues, but The Electric Soft Parade ain't one of them – the album the cover coincided with, ‘The American Adventure’, was and is fantastic, their current anonymity more to do with a label that struggled to wipe its own arse, never mind make a success out of the once-astoundingly creative White brothers. Talking of where-are-they-now?, we’ve got Muse balking out from October’s cover. Dom, their drummer, looks about 12. Which is funny, really, cos The Darkness are on the cover of our final issue of the year and none of them look under 40. At the time, it was a no-brainer, Justin Hawkins & co. had taken the year by storm and were at their pre-coke destroying peak – great fun live, piss-taking and in possession of some of the best riffs this side of Phil Lynott’s afro. The joke wouldn’t last forever – actually, it wouldn’t last a year – but The Darkness pretty much owned 2003. Electric Six? They were just paying rent…
